“That explains it.”
He smiled.
“You screamed the entire way.”
“I had standards.”
He laughed.
It was the first time I had heard that laugh in months.
He opened the passenger door.
Inside, beneath the seat, was a wooden box.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Something I should have given you years ago.”
The box was small, dark, and worn smooth at the edges.
I lifted the lid.
Inside was a silver key, a folded map, and a bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon.
I looked at Dad.
“What are these?”
“Letters your mother wrote before you were born.”
My fingers stopped.
“She wrote letters?”
“Every week while I was working out of state.”
“Why haven’t I seen them?”
“Because I thought you would read them when you were ready.”
“Ready for what?”
Dad looked through the windshield.
“For the truth about why we came back here.”
I untied the ribbon.
The first letter was dated three months before my birth.
I read it slowly.
My mother wrote about a small house she had found near the lake, about the room she wanted to paint yellow, and about the name she had chosen for me. She wrote that she wanted me to grow up knowing that home was not the place where people claimed you belonged.
Home was where someone kept a light on for you.
The next letter described a woman named Evelyn Mercer.
